ICFs
There are many ways to design and build an extremely energy efficient home or building. So I encourage you to be open minded and do your research. We choose to use Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) and selected the Reddi-Wall system to construct our exterior walls.
ICFs are interlocking Styrofoam forms. Once they are stacked and braced, they are then filled with concrete. Styrofoam and ICFs have some pretty amazing qualities that make ICFs a smart and effective energy efficient building system for homes, as well as for commercial & industrial buildings.
ICF structures can be constructed fairly quickly and have tremendous strength.
They also have a characteristic called emissivity, or the ability to deflect energy. Emissivity enables Styrofoam walls to deflect energy, whether it’s in the form of heat, cold, sound or impact, away from the walls on the exterior and interior.
On the interior, heat bounces off the walls, ceiling and floor. The result is that each cubic foot of the house is the same temperature. Everything between the ceiling and floor is the same temperature, so there are no cold spots or drafts.
